ON JANUARY 13th, ten Whooping Cranes flew over the town of St. Marks. Led by one of four ultralights, they arrived at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge where they will spend what is left of winter.

Young Whooping Cranes eagerly attack minnows brought as a peace offering following the vet check. Photo by Christine Barnes, The Northfield News For the past several days, the cranes have been in an enclosed section of a large three-acre pen in a secluded salt marsh on the refuge. Before they could be released from the enclosure, the cranes tolerated a vet check to make sure they were sound and healthy following the long migration. They are young birds, after all, and 89 days in transit is a lot of stress on their bodies. Were they to fly on their own, without ultralights and other necessary human intervention, the migration would take only 2-3 weeks, not four months.

Specially trained and qualified veterinarians checked the birds and found them ready for the next step into the wild. All staff who handle the cranes do so in silence, dressed in amorphous white outfits that render them “not human”. Following a vet check, the young cranes were skittish around any white-costumed ‘intruders’. Handlers must re-establish trust. To win forgiveness for all the poking and prodding, staff gave the birds a lip-smacking diet of shrimp, minnows and crabs, their favorite foods.

Once the cranes’ health is confirmed and trust restored, they can be released into the large pen with no top cover. They are free to come and go, except at night, when they return to the pen for safety from predators.

At the edge of the salt marsh, there is a blind for observation, monitoring and data collection on the ten juvenile birds. The blind is built above an imaginary high water line. Two wide openings afford visual access to the pen. The heavy camouflage netting, together with the distance, make for challenging viewing: the three-acre pen, with no top cover, is about three football fields away.

During the week following the vet check, high winds, drenching rain and flooding made the release of the birds unsafe. But today, January 25th, the sky is bright and the winds are down. In the late afternoon, the light is compromised inside the blind where I wait in anticipation. At the close of day, the descending sun sheds a golden glow across the salt marsh. The blue of the bay beyond gives the sense of an endless horizon. Two white-costumed figures can be seen slopping around inside the muddy, water-soaked pen.

At approximately 4:30 pm, the wetland is silent and still, the light is soft. One white-clad figure moves toward the enclosure and slowly pulls open the gate. Out stream the eager young cranes, and quickly, they are in the air, circling, circling, flying out toward the bay and back over the pen, circling to the west, then the east, back and forth. For several heart-stopping minutes they challenge the careful planning of Operation Migration staff as though they might never relinquish the welcome, hard-won moment of freedom.

Then three birds drop their landing gear and return to the area just outside the pen. One handler is present with tempting treats and a lot of patience. Seven cranes continue to circle, playing the jailbreak for all it’s worth. A few more circles. Four land inside, and three more join their buddies outside the pen. Gradually, with all the time in the world, it would seem, one handler coaxes each of the six individual birds back into the pen. Gates close.

So what? No top! A flock of about 25 immature White Ibis swing by and buzz the pen. Like kids at the local county fair heading to the next crazy ride, four cranes re-launch and cavort among the Ibis for a couple of laps. The Ibis move on, and the cranes drop back into the pen.

In one of the two ponds inside the pen, there is a raised area just below the water’s surface. On this ‘oyster bar’, fabricated by refuge staff a year ago, two, then three, then four cranes discover a suitable bathing experience. A surrogate crane stands stiffly at the end of the bar as a model for the cranes, and is effective: following their baths, a handler moves onto the bar and the remaining cranes follow and claim their night’s roosting space. This is their first lesson in the safe practice of using in the water as a defense: if a predator should approach, it must do so through the liquid alarm system surrounding the roosting site.

It is nearly dark, and the handler waits for the “Harley kick”, when each crane jerks its leg as though starting a motorcycle, then tucks the leg up and goes to sleep. Then, ever so slowly, quietly, the handler slips away and leaves the young cranes to the light of the half-moon, and their first night under the stars.